CCR Magazine

With an employed field network of credit industry professionals, and state of the art technology, new company Ethicall is out to radically change perception of the field services market ….

These are tough times in the lending industry. Credit-granters and collections managers face huge challenges just to navigate through the minefield of regulation, control and supervision being introduced to ensure that when it comes to the “crunch”, they’ve got it right for the future.

They can’t afford to get it wrong. They need to know their customer better than ever before. There’s TCF, pre-action protocols, the OFT, the Lending Standards Board and a host of regulators to think of. There’s controlling bad debts whilst lending for profit.

Everyone wants face to face interaction with that customer, but local branch networks have disappeared, and they’re loathe to trust an external “Agent” to represent them on the doorstep.

Ethicall has been created to break that mould. Ethicall is the brain-child of Geoff Poundes, Richard Griggs and David Williams. Poundes and Williams previously founded a business employing up to 150 self-employed Agents.

“It was a never-ending struggle to get the network into shape” says Geoff Poundes, “Most had no industry experience, weren’t properly licenced, and the quality of their work was, at best, marginal. Of course, there are some excellent Agents, but the vast majority simply aren’t fit for purpose.”

In response Ethicall have created a network of Regional Partners, all of whom have held senior management roles within the credit industry.

“Our Regional Partners share an average of 15 years senior experience working for the likes of HFC Bank, Welcome and Black Horse. They work solely for Ethicall, under our Consumer Credit Licence, and they speak the lending industry’s language” says Geoff Poundes.

It’s a unique proposition. Ethicall believe that they’ll enhance the client’s reputation, whilst delivering unheard of benefits in terms of time, cost and adherence to the new regulatory environment.

Richard Griggs is Ethicall’s Operations Director:

“Ethicall will become the only field services provider the industry can truly trust. We’ll have a degree of supervision and control of our field activity that is unsurpassed, and critical in these difficult times, coupled with the finest, and most secure, on-line systems on the market.”

(Source - Ethicall Press Release)